Sarasota: Aloft (December 2016)



My spouse and I stayed at the Aloft Sarasota for three nights in late December 2016 while we visited family for the holidays. We reserved our room via telephone because we had a promotion code that we could not make work online on their website. The Aloft brand is part of the Starwood hotel chain (which includes Four Points, Sheraton, Westin, St. Regis, and W, plus now also includes all Marriott holdings including Courtyard, Fairfield, Springhill Suites, Residence Inn, JW, Ritz-Carlton, and Gaylord).


The Aloft Sarasota opened in February 2016 in downtown Sarasota, close to the bay and small marina, and near shops and restaurants. The hotel offers the WXYZ lobby bar, outdoor rooftop pool bar, a 24-hour pantry area (where you can purchase grab-and-go items like fresh fruit, beverages, packaged dry snacks, and refrigerated and frozen foods), and a small self-service limited hours eatery called Re:fuel. (Re: fuel makes cooked-to-order breakfast sandwiches, but nothing later in the day.) It appears that the hotel has an empty street-level space (including a small outdoor deck) that could potentially host a full-service restaurant in the future. The Re:charge fitness center is open 24 hours, with the outdoor rooftop pool open from 11:00 am until dusk. An outdoor interior-facing courtyard located off the non-traditional lobby (round check-in desk, trendy furniture, billiards table, DJ in the evening) offers two fire pits, a waterfall, and a projection wall for light shows and movies. Complimentary Wi-Fi is available throughout the hotel. Small pets are welcome; the hotel even offers pet beds, food/water bowls, and treats. If you forgo daily housekeeping, the hotel will offer you a food/beverage credit of about $5 per day. Both valet and self-parking are available for a reasonable fee.


The Aloft offers 139 rooms in various configurations, including King (310 to 325 square feet) and Double Queen (360 to 378 square feet) rooms spread across ten stories. “Splash” rooms are the largest (360 to 420 square feet) and provide easy access to the outdoor pool deck. An adjacent (and interconnected) apartment building called One Palm offers 138 rooms for long-term guests; tenants share the hotel’s fitness center and pool (with some lucky apartments offering terraces adjacent to the pool deck). 


We occupied Room 908, which overlooked the interior courtyard and was located near the bank of two elevators. (The hotel is quite secure because you cannot travel anywhere on the elevator without first swiping your room key.) Our king room contained a bed, desk and rolling chair, and accent chair. No luggage stands are available, so the hotel gave us two banquet chairs on which to place our bags. (If we had placed them atop the large desk, we would not have been able to use it for its intended purpose, and the accent chair, while hip and attractive, was made of a sort of molded plastic and therefore unsuitable to hold anything but a person’s behind.) The hotel provides complimentary bottled water and in-room coffee making facilities, as well as a small (empty) refrigerator beneath the bathroom sink. We felt that the lighting was inadequate for our taste; it was very dim in our room, even with the shades on the two windows fully open. We also found the wall air-conditioning unit to be noisy and inaccurate; it was either too hot or too cold in our room, but never just right. Our biggest complaint was the bathroom design/layout. The sink area was located outside of the room that contained the toilet and oversize glass shower (a layout which we generally find convenient when two people share a room). However, because the sink area was divided from the sleeping area by a trendy closet/furniture piece, and also because the shower contained a frosted window that overlooked the bedroom, one could not turn the light on for either the sink or the toilet area without allowing light into the sleeping area. In addition, the sliding pocket door between the sink area and the toilet/shower room caused additional light and noise seepage to awaken another guest. We are not sure of a solution to this issue – perhaps adding blinds or a shade in the shower? Somehow allowing the sliding door that covers the closet area to also slide across the doorway between the sink and the sleeping area? The room is stylish and trendy-looking, just not well-designed for more than one guest at a time. The hotel provides Bliss toiletries; however, they are not standard mini-bottles like you find in other hotels; the two-in-one combination shampoo/conditioner and body wash (in the trademark Bliss blue color, which is a bit off-putting) were dispensed from plastic units on the shower wall. Bar soap (again blue, which became an unappealing mess as the days wore on) was provided for the sink. No robes or slippers were available, and the towel supply was a bit meager for two guests. The closet storage unit, while nice-looking and modern, was less functional than we would have liked.


Even with our few issues, we loved the location of the Aloft Sarasota, so we will return for the right price.


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